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Method and apparatus for identifying co-channel interference

Method and apparatus for identifying co-channel interference description/claims

This application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/102,958, filed Apr. 11, 2005, for “PHYSICAL LAYER HEADER SCRAMBLING IN SATELLITE BROADCAST SYSTEMS,” by Lin-Nan Lee, Feng-Wen Sun, Adam Von Ancken, Joseph Santoru, Ernest C. Chen, Shamik Maitra, Dennis Lai, and Guancai Zhou, which claims the benefit of the earlier filing date under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/561,418 filed Apr. 12, 2004, entitled “CO-CHANNEL INTERFERENCE MITIGATION FOR DVB-S2,” both of which applications are hereby incorporated herein by reference.

This application is also related to the following applications, each of which are hereby incorporated by reference herein:

U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/103,307, filed Apr. 11, 2005, for “METHODS AND APPARATUSES FOR MINIMIZING CO-CHANNEL INTERFERENCE”, by Lin-Nan Lee, Feng-Wen Sun, Adam Von Ancken, Joseph Santoru, Ernest C. Chen, Dennis Lai, and Guancai Zhou and Tung-Sheng Lin, which claims benefit of the earlier filing date under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/561,418, filed Apr. 12, 2004, entitled “CO-CHANNEL INTERFERENCE MITIGATION FOR DVB-S2”;

U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/449,912, filed Jun. 9, 2006, for “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MINIMIZING CO-CHANNEL INTERFERENCE”, by Lin-Nan Lee, Feng-Wen Sun and Adam Von Ancken, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/009,346, filed Dec. 10, 2004, for “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MINIMIZING CO-CHANNEL INTERFERENCE”, by Lin-Nan Lee, Feng-Wen Sun, Adam Von Ancken, issued Jan. 9, 2007 as U.S. Pat. No. 7,161,988, which claims benefit of the earlier filing date under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/561,418, filed Apr. 12, 2004, entitled “CO-CHANNEL INTERFERENCE MITIGATION FOR DVB-S2”;

U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/009,333, filed Dec. 10, 2004, for “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MINIMIZING CO-CHANNEL INTERFERENCE SCRAMBLING”, by Feng-Wen Sun and Iyer, which claims benefit of the earlier filing date under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/583,410, filed Jun. 28, 2004, entitled “SCRAMBLING OF PHYSICAL LAYER HEADER AND PILOT SYMBOL IN DBV-S2 TO REDUCE CO-CHANNEL INTERFERENCE,” and Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/585,654, filed Jul. 6, 2004, entitled “SCRAMBLING OF PHYSICAL LAY HEADER AND PILOT SYMBOL IN DVB-S2 TO REDUCE CO-CHANNEL INTERFERENCE”; and

U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/102,983, filed Apr. 11, 2005, for “SHIFTED CHANNEL CHARACTERISTICS FOR MITIGATING CO-CHANNEL INTERFERENCE”, by Joseph Santoru, Ernest C. Chen, Shamik Maitra, Dennis Lai, Guancai Zhou, and Tung-Sheng Lin, which claims benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/561,418, filed Apr. 12, 2004, and entitled “CO-CHANNEL INTERFERENCE MITIGATION FOR DVB-S2”; and

U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/510,244, for “METHODS AND APPARATUSES FOR DETERMINING SCRAMBLING CODES FOR SIGNAL TRANSMISSION,” by Judith Wang, Guangcai Zhou, Joseph Santoru, Ernest C. Chen, Shamik Maitra, Dennis Lai, and Tang-Sheng Lin, filed Aug. 26, 2006, which claims benefit under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. Provisional Patent No. 60/711,475 for “METHODS AND APPARATUSES FOR DETERMINING SCRAMBLING CODES FOR SIGNAL TRANSMISSION,” filed Aug. 26, 2005.

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to communication systems, and more particularly to methods and apparatuses for minimizing signal interference.

2. Description of the Related Art

FIGS. 1A and 1B illustrate a typical satellite based broadcast systems of the related art.

FIG. 1A shows a communications system, specifically a television broadcasting system 20, which transmits and receives audio, video, and data signals via satellite. Although the present invention is described in the context of a satellite-based television broadcasting system, the techniques described herein are equally applicable to other methods of program content delivery, such as terrestrial over-the-air systems, cable-based systems, and the Internet. Further, while the present invention will be described primarily with respect to television content (i.e. audio and video content), the present invention can be practiced with a wide variety of program content material, including video content, audio content, audio and video related content (e.g., television viewer channels), or data content.

Television broadcasting system 20 includes transmission station 26, uplink dish 30, at least one satellite 32, and receiver stations 34A-34C (collectively referred to as receiver stations 34). Transmission station 26 includes a plurality of inputs 22 for receiving various signals, such as analog television signals, digital television signals, video tape signals, original programming signals and computer generated signals containing HTML content. Additionally, inputs 22 receive signals from digital video servers having hard discs or other digital storage media. Transmission station 26 also includes a plurality of timing inputs 24, which provide electronic schedule information about the timing and content of various television channels, such as that found in television schedules contained in newspapers and television guides. Transmission station 26 converts the data from timing inputs 24 into program guide data. Program guide data may also be manually entered at the site of transmission station 26. The program guide data consists of a plurality of “objects”. The program guide data objects include data for constructing an electronic program guide that is ultimately displayed on a user's television.

Transmission station 26 receives and processes the various input signals received on inputs 22 and timing inputs 24, converts the received signals into a standard form, combines the standard signals into a single output data stream 28, and continuously sends output data stream 28 to uplink dish 30. Output data stream 28 is a digital data stream that is typically compressed using MPEG2 encoding, although other compression schemes may be used.

The digital data in output data stream 28 are divided into a plurality of packets, with each such packet marked with a service channel identification (SCID) number. The SCIDs are later used by receiver 64 (shown in FIG. 1B) to identify the packets that correspond to each television channel. Error correction data is also included in output data stream 28.

Output data stream 28 is a multiplexed signal that is modulated by transmission station 26 using standard frequency and polarization modulation techniques. Output data stream 28 preferably includes 16 frequency bands, with each frequency band being either left polarized or right polarized. Alternatively, vertical and horizontal polarizations may be used.

Uplink dish 30 continuously receives output data stream 28 from transmission station 26, amplifies the received signal and transmits the signal 31 to at least one satellite 32. Although a single uplink dish and satellite are shown in FIG. 1, multiple dishes and satellites are preferably used to provide additional bandwidth, and to help ensure continuous delivery of signals.

Satellites 32 revolve in geosynchronous orbit about the earth. Satellites 32 each include a plurality of transponders that receive signals 31 transmitted by uplink dish 30, amplify the received signals 31, frequency shift the received signals 31 to lower frequency bands, and then transmit the amplified, frequency shifted signals 33 back to receiver stations 34.

Receiver stations 34 receive and process the signals 33 transmitted by satellites 32. Receiver stations 34 are described in further detail below with respect to FIG. 1B.

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